


and i'll tell you all about it when i see you again

by elsaclack



Series: close to home [1]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Post Winter Finale, almost to the same level as terry, but they don't know that yet, gina's gonna be fine obviously, jake and amy are basically squad parents now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 15:39:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9242222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsaclack/pseuds/elsaclack
Summary: It's snowing by the time they make it home from Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.





	

**Author's Note:**

> *crashes through a brick wall* I WROTE ANGST I WROTE ANGST I WROTE ANGST
> 
> i mean it was inevitable after the winter finale tbh
> 
> CLEARLY this is not spoiler free so if you haven’t seen the winter finale yet and don’t want to be spoiled, maybe probably definitely don’t read this BUT OTHERWISE
> 
> I’M SORRY

It’s snowing by the time they make it home from Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.

Amy registers the fact as they pull up outside, blinking up in surprise at the fat white flakes that have started a gentle, mesmerizing spiral down to Earth. The sun has only just started peeking over the horizon, throwing the whole scene into a muted, ethereal kind of light. She hears Jake shift beside her more than she sees him; from the corner of her eye, his profile leans into view, toward the windshield. Their hands are still clasped over the center console, the way they have been since they slid into her car back in the hospital parking lot, and he squeezes her fingers almost absently where they fit between his own.

She feels like she’s drowning in exhaustion and fear and anger and sadness all at once, but the clumsy drag of his thumb along the side of her index finger - the way he studiously avoids her gaze when she turns to look at him - quiets all of that. Her own protective instincts are starting to take over at the sight of his clenched jaw and darting gaze, the instincts that tell her to drag him inside and wrap him up in all the blankets she owns and steadily comb his hair with her fingers while he falls asleep with his head in her lap to the soothing sounds of _Die Hard_ turned down low on her television.

 _Their_ television, she corrects herself automatically.

She does as much as she can with her left hand - pulling her keys out of the ignition and unbuckling her seat belt - before squeezing his hand firmly enough that he has to look at her. The look in his eyes is breathtaking, so open and vulnerable and pained, but she manages to bite back her gasp. She tries to smile, but she can tell by the way his eyes dart down to her lips at the movement that it comes across as more of a grimace than anything else. “C’mon,” she says, and her voice comes out as a rough, quiet whisper.

Jake swallows thickly on reflex and nods, gently disentangling his fingers from hers to reach for his seat belt buckle. He hands her the strap of her purse where it fell between his feet on the drive home, and she takes it from him without a word.

She’s starting to wonder if there even are any words anymore. 

Jake seems to be in the same mindset, at least, though to his credit he’s never really needed words - not around her, at least. She can read his face like an open book, all of his thoughts and emotions spelled out right there in the expressive curve of his brows and the delicate creases around his eyes and lips. Right now, though, for the first time in years, he’s unreadable. His hand twitches, like he’s itching to reach for her as she climbs out of the driver’s side to join him on the sidewalk outside of their home, but his fingers curl into a tight fist at his side just as a line of muscle in his jaw ripples. She bites her lip and winds her arms around her middle automatically in response to the cold and his hesitation. She falls into step beside him, close enough to feel his body heat through her coat but careful not to lean into his side like she normally would.

She fumbles with the keys once they get to the front door and Jake is quiet, watching her in silence, and she wants to cry because the key won’t slide into the lock and they’re going to be locked out here in the cold forever, home just inches away. But after a brief eternity, the key slides home and the lock clicks out of place and she pushes the front door open.

The sight of his moving boxes stacked neatly along the far wall in the living room to her right immediately catches her attention and despite everything, a little bud of warmth ignites in the pit of her stomach at the sight. The inevitable concept of them creating a home together has always been tantalizing, but now that it’s real - now that his lease is up and the paperwork to change his home address on his driver’s license is spread across her dining room table - it’s just on the right side of overwhelming. She feels him step closer behind her, further into the warmth so that he can close the front door behind them, and it takes everything she has to keep from leaning back into him with a sigh.

He steps to the right just as she steps to the left and they look at each other briefly before his fingers rise to his coat zipper at his throat. She starts unbuttoning her peacoat, carefully watching the way his eyes track her fingers as they move methodically from button to button. His throat is working again, looking as though he’s struggling to swallow a lump that has risen there, and despite the overwhelming affection sizzling through her veins she’s brought back to Earth by a wave of grief once again.

His tongue darts out to wet his lips. “Coffee,” he rasps, and she realizes with a jolt that it’s the first word he’s spoken in hours.

She nods and takes his coat and hangs both hers and his on the hooks beside the door, listening to him toe his shoes off on the other side of the door before he pads toward the kitchen. The sound of the floorboards creaking beneath his feet sends another unexpected wave of affection through her system - this one is just as overwhelming as the last, tinged with gratefulness that he’s already so comfortable in his home that he knows where the coffee is and he knows how to work her ancient coffee pot and his mug has a special place on the counter, snugly tucked between the machine and her own mug. She has to pause there in the entryway, her hands gripping their coats like vices to keep herself upright. It simply won’t do to let him see her like that right now, not when this dopey little grin on her face is so massively out of place.

It takes several minutes to compose herself, and by the time she’s able to walk into his line of sight, he’s already putting the finishing touches on her coffee. He glances up at her when she appears in the doorway, and in the bleak light filtering in through the fogged window above her sink, she can see the dark circles beneath his eyes clearly. Her heart clenches at the sight.

Jake offers her her mug while sipping at his and she takes it gratefully, only just then realizing how cold her fingers are in contrast to the piping hot porcelain cradled between her hands. She blows on the surface and sips just enough to make sure the liquid won’t slosh over the edge when she takes a step forward before turning her full attention back to Jake.

He’s watching her closely again, bloodshot eyes following the tip of her tongue when it darts out to gather the latent coffee clinging to her upper lip. His jaw clenches again and he briefly closes his eyes; when they open, he meets her gaze. Those chocolate brown irises are blown dark as they bore into hers, wide and pleading, aching and desperate.

The coffee burns her fingers when it splashes over the edge of her mug as she haphazardly discards it on the kitchen counter to her right, but she hardly notices it; tears have already started spilling down Jake’s face, his breath already coming in heaving gasps, his shoulders slumped when she carefully pulls his mug from his grip.

He collapses into her, his face buried in the crook of her neck, quiet sobs muffled further into the folds of her sweatshirt. She holds him up as steadily as she can, stroking his hair and his back and his shoulders and neck and any other part of him she can reach. His entire body trembles against her, the weight of it all finally coming down upon him in full-force. She feels his grip shifting against her, his hands smoothing up her sides and fisting against her back and fluttering against her shoulders. She recognizes on some level that she should be trying to soothe him with words, too, but when she opens her mouth her breath comes in a stuttering gasp and she realizes only then that she’s started crying, too.

She closes her eyes and sees it again, sees the street and the bus and the flash of auburn hair spread across the concrete. She sees Charles’ face pinched in terror, sees the bus driver faint upon climbing out of the bus and the horrified looks on bystanders’ faces.

Amy’s legs still burn from sitting for so long in the ER waiting room, her shoulder still stiff from where her arm had been wrapped around Jake from the moment he arrived twenty minutes after she and Charles did to the moment Gina’s doctor appeared in the doorway hours later. She still feels weak at the knees from the sight of Gina unconscious in her bed, heavily bandaged and hooked up to more machines than Amy cared to count and comatose for the foreseeable future.

 _The swelling in her brain has to go down_ , the doctor said to their quiet little group. _Once the swelling is down, we’ll have a better idea of what kind of damage the impact may have had. She’ll survive either way, but we just don’t know what it’s going to look like yet._

Jake seemed reluctant to leave, but Captain Holt assured them both that he would stay with her, that he would call her mother and would arrange a rotating visitation schedule and would email it to the squad as quickly as possible.

He heaves violently against her now, his gasp ragged and labored, and her fingers automatically find purchase in his hair at the sound. “Jake,” she whispers, and if he didn’t know she was crying before he definitely does now, “it’s okay. It’s okay.”

His arms tighten around her to the point of almost being painful, fingers pressing bruises into her skin.

“Babe, you have to calm down,” she strokes the back of his head with more force than before, creating a long, slow, rhythmic motion that she replicates with her breathing. “ _Focus_ , Jake. Breathe.”

He releases a low whine that sets the hairs on the back of her neck on end, but then his head turns a degree and he scoops down a quivering breath almost in time with hers.

“Good,” she whispers before dragging in another deep inhale through her nose. His exhale skates down her shoulder, warming a patch of sensitive skin right at the bend of her neck where his mouth is currently pressed. “Keep going, you’re doing great.”

His hands have finally found purchase at her sides, fingers curled tightly along the curve of her ribs. She feels his thumb stroke a small, compulsive pattern up high, near her armpit; that movement, along with the steady rise and fall of his back beneath her left hand, calms her concern considerably. 

She pulls away but he doesn’t let her get far, pulling her back in and leaning his forehead down against hers. “Hey,” she breathes, smoothing her hands down from the back of his neck, palms drifting over his shoulders and biceps before wrapping loosely around his elbows. “Are you okay?” His eyes flutter open and a brief, familiar look of exasperation flashes across his face. “You know what I mean,” she says, subdued and indignant all at once.

“I…yeah,” he says, and she hates how thin his voice is. “I’m not dying anymore, if that’s what you mean.”

“It is. It’s exactly what I mean.” Jake closes his eyes and inhales, and she can tell by the way his eyes roll behind his lids that he’s breathing her in. Her hands rise to cup his face on reflex, her thumbs smoothing over the hollows of his cheeks, met with the slightest hint of resistance in the form of his unshaven skin. “We’re gonna figure this out.” She says softly.

Part of Amy kind of wants to scoff at her own words - she watched his oldest friend get hit so hard by a speeding bus that she’s in a coma, possibly suffering from irreversible brain damage, there’s nothing to figure out - but he seems to sense whatever meaning she’s poorly conveying, because when he opens his eyes to look at her again, he nods against her. “Yeah,” he says, choked, like he’s on the verge of crying again. “We will.”

She holds his gaze for a moment longer before dropping her eyes to his chest and closing them when he lifts up to kiss her forehead. They’re quiet again for a long moment, wrapped up in their own thoughts, but when Jake opens his mouth again and hesitantly inhales, Amy looks up at him automatically.

“Are we…are we allowed to be happy?” He asks softly.

She swallows, clenches her own jaw, ignores the flutter of her heart against her ribs. Suddenly the thought of hiding her excitement at them finally sharing a home seems stupid. “Yeah,” she says, “of course we are. She…she was happy for us.” His face seems to fold again, tears suddenly springing up and spilling out of the corners. “She _is_ happy for us,” she corrects herself, and when his eyes open they’re narrowed in confusion. “She’s still alive, and as far as I’m concerned she’s still the person she was yesterday.”

“But - the bus -”

“It’s gonna take a _lot_ more than public transportation to kill Gina Linetti,” Amy says seriously, and the laugh that escapes Jake’s throat is watery, but genuine. “Besides, she’ll…she’ll probably pretend to be offended that we left her side for even a second, but secretly, she’ll be happy for us. For _you_.”

He nods slowly, closes his eyes, and gently bumps her forehead with his. “I love you so, so much,” he whispers.

Amy pushes up on her tiptoes and slats her mouth against his in response, holding him steady with one hand on his upper arm and the other curled gently around the back of his neck. He kisses her back with all the warmth and intensity she’s come to expect, but neither one of them moves to deepen the kiss. It’s all soft and slow and comforting, bringing back echoes of kisses from the days following his return from Florida. Of course, those were hazy through the fog of his painkillers; this is shrouded in a melancholy that fogs both of their systems.

She’s not sure which is more overwhelming.

It goes on like that for quite some time, just soft gasps and lips and hands. They only slow when they hear a knock at the front door. “I got it,” Amy whispers against his lips.

Jake sways slightly on the spot when she pulls away from him, and if it weren’t for the second, more insistent knock at the door, she might have just immediately tucked herself back into him. But as it is, she heaves a slow sigh and grabs her mug before trudging back into the front room.

Charles and Rosa are on their front porch, looking to be studiously avoiding eye-contact with each other through the peephole in the front door. They both look up when she opens the door, and even with the snow flurries caught in their hair, their despair is a palpable thing. “We didn’t come together,” Charles says quickly, by way of explanation. Amy ignores the sharp chill running down her spine and grips her coffee mug harder to avoid doing something stupid, like hugging them both. “It was - we were…um.”

Rosa steps forward then, her eyes gaunt and sunken and haunting. And once again, Amy finds it oddly difficult to draw a breath. “D’you have any more coffee?” She asks, working hard to keep her voice even and failing miserably.

“Of course,” Amy breathes, nodding quickly and ushering them both inside. Jake’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen but at the sight of Rosa and Charles trudging inside, he quickly disappears. She can hear the sounds of her cabinets opening over Charles and Rosa stripping out of their outermost layers, the sounds of mugs clicking against the kitchen counter over them stepping out of their boots and lining them up next to hers and Jake’s.

They all end up in the living room once the coffee has been doctored accordingly. Rosa’s and Charles’ mugs are steaming but Jake’s and Amy’s have long-since cooled; they all sit in silence save for the soft rustle of moving limbs and the occasional slurp from Charles at the far end of the couch.

It’s not uncomfortable, though, Amy realizes as she sinks further back into Jake’s side where they sit on the opposite side of the couch from Charles. Jake’s arm tightens around her, hand smoothing up her arm, leaving pinpricks of warmth in his wake. It’s as soothing now as it was three weeks ago, when he employed the same move after finding her shivering in the downstairs maintenance closet at the precinct an hour after Gina locked her in there.

A quiet laugh bubbles up her throat unbidden at the memory. Jake’s hand stills on her arm as Rosa and Charles both turn toward her sharply, and her face heats up under their gazes.

“I was just - thinking,” she says, trying to push back the knot of panic forming in her chest. “She locked me in the maintenance closet a few weeks ago. I was trapped in there for an hour.”

Rosa shifts in the armchair on the other side of the coffee table, the beginnings of a smirk taking shape on her face. Jake resumes his steady caress, and Charles snorts in appreciation. “On our family vacation, she somehow figured out a way to strap me down to the ski lift while I wasn’t paying attention. I was stuck on that thing for almost two hours before they finally figured out what was going on.” Amy laughs along with Charles, belatedly registering the quake in Jake’s chest beneath her left arm as silent laughter.

“One time she drugged me and locked me in the private locker room when she thought I had a cold,” Rosa says, and even though her voice is still far too subdued (by Rosa standards), Amy recognizes the affection in her far-off gaze. “I took a four-hour nap and then punched through the window. Scared the shit out her.”

Another laugh ripples through the group. Jake shifts beneath her, sits up a little straighter, and she reaches up to thread her fingers through his against her arm. “Once,” Jake starts, and Charles and Rosa seem to straighten a little, too, as if only just remembering that for every Gina story they have, Jake likely has seven. “When we were in second grade, Gina, like, _really_ hated P.E. Like, _hated_ it. There was this closet off to the side in the gym where the teacher kept all the equipment - the balls and hockey sticks and stuff - but it was almost always locked during class. One day Gina pretended like her bracelet had gone under the gap beneath the door and waited until the teacher had the door unlocked and was inside before she _locked her in_. The poor woman left the keys right there in the door and Gina just slammed the door and locked it from the outside.

“It was chaos for five minutes, and then Gina figured out how to work the sound system. Next thing we knew, she was standing on one of those blue plastic chairs, yelling at everyone to get it together and get back to our spots. I could hear the teacher banging on the door and yelling her head off but no one wanted to be the one to cross Gina. It was crazy. But then she started playing music - I don’t even remember what song it was anymore - and she taught us this stupid little dance routine. All of us, everyone in our class plus all the other kids in the other second grade class.

“By the time our teachers came to pick us up, we’d learned the routine and the gym teacher was so impressed that Gina got off with one detention.” Charles and Rosa are grinning as broadly as Amy is, and even though she can’t see Jake’s face, she senses the smile in his voice. “They added dance as a sport, and Gina loved it from that moment on.”

They all laugh, long and loud, and after a moment Amy feels Jake’s nose against her ear. She leans into him, letting him hide his face in her hair, and for a moment the emotions are too much for her to handle.

They swap stories for a while longer, until eventually it’s just Jake talking. Rosa’s curled in on herself on the armchair and has nodded off with her chin resting against her bent knee; Charles seems to be fighting a losing battle against his own exhaustion, head lolling repeatedly toward the back of the couch until he catches himself and bolts upright once more. She can feel Jake’s cheek against the crown of her head, his jaw working as he speaks, and the warmth of him pressed against her is lulling her toward sleep herself.

“Ames?” He says quietly once Charles’ head hits the back of the couch and stays there.

Her eyes flutter open (she’s not sure, exactly, when they closed). “Hm?” She hums.

He pulls her closer, more firmly against him, and lays three slow kisses against the side of her head. “Thank you,” he whispers into her hair.

“Mm,” she mumbles, turning her head until her nose meets his chest. “Love you. Go t’sleep.”

She feels him chuckle, feels his fingers curl briefly into her side as he hugs her to him. “I love you, too. So much. So unbelievably much.”

Her chest aches with the need to respond in kind, but her body is already too heavy beneath the weight of sleep and they’ll have all the time in the world later when the exhaustion isn’t quite so pressing and they’ll get to start unpacking his boxes while they wait for Holt’s email, so for now she settles for nuzzling just slightly closer and releasing a long, contented sigh into the base of his throat.


End file.
